Philip de Oliveira

It’s possible that no piece of music has been abused over the centuries as much as Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, op. 35. Violin virtuoso Augustin Hadelich believes the concerto’s survival in spite of

In the classical repertoire, most standard combinations of instruments have matured over centuries. The string quartet is nearly 300 years old. The first known wind quintet was written sometime in the 18th century. The modern

Time for Three looks like a classical string trio, but their style and creative process have more in common with popular music. Violinist Nick Kendall said the group mostly adheres to a “garage band” style

Chautauquans are no doubt used to seeing the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra as a single, cohesive whole when it performs its usual three concerts each week. At 4 p.m. Friday in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, concertgoers

When the average classical music lover thinks of Russian orchestral music, he or she most likely thinks of the grand, sprawling symphonies by Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. At 8:15 p.m Tuesday in the Amphitheater, the

Music gets compared to a lot of things: language, architecture, mathematics, drugs. Violinists Olga and Ilya Kaler like to think of a concert program as a well-proportioned meal. “It has to have an appetizer, it

Steven Mackey considers himself a kind of musical mutt. Mackey grew up playing electric guitar. He admired Jimi Hendrix, Ravi Shankar and Led Zeppelin. In his late teens, he had his first encounter with classical

Can music paint a picture? The question, expressed in different ways, concerns the age-old debate over whether music does and can mean anything definite. Critics, program annotators, professional musicians and even composers themselves can’t seem

If you don’t know JACK, here’s your chance. At 4 p.m. Monday in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, the JACK Quartet will present an eclectic program of modern and contemporary works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, John

There’s no such thing as just another Mahler symphony. It’s one of the great paradoxes of the symphonic repertoire: Gustav Mahler would install himself in an idyllic cottage and write music in the summers, and

John Gerber first encountered the trompe de chasse (“hunting horn”) while traveling in France. “I was so impressed hearing this instrument,” Gerber said. Being a professional French horn player, Gerber decided to give the trompe

There’s no shortage of enterprising young chamber ensembles who, in some fashion or other, are on a mission to blur or erase the boundaries between classical music and other genres. According to guitarist Matt Holmes-Linder,

Illustration by Emma Francois Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony sets a pretty high bar for a conductor’s physical endurance, clocking in at about an hour and a half. Yet two back-to-back performances would only be about

Musicologists are still debating over the extent to which personal and creative forces shaped Tchaikovsky’s final symphony. Brazilian-born conductor Marcelo Lehninger takes a moderate view, acknowledging the acute depression of the composer’s final years did